Leonid Breitfuß

Leonid Breitfuß in Berlin in 1929

Ludwig Gottlieb "Leonid" Breitfuß ( Russian Леонид Львович Брейтфус ; born December 1, 1864 in Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire ; † July 20, 1950 in Bad Pyrmont , Lower Saxony ) was a German marine biologist and polar explorer .

Life

Leonid Breitfuß came from a German merchant family in Petersburg. His grandfather had settled in St. Petersburg when Catherine the Great came from Rastenburg in East Prussia . Breitfuß attended the German-speaking Petri School .

In 1889 he began studying natural sciences with a focus on biology at the University of Berlin . It was founded in 1898 as an academic student of Franz Schulze Eilhard with a thesis on calcareous doctorate . While still a student, he made contact with natural scientists such as Hermann von Helmholtz , Ernst Haeckel , Carl Chun and Wilhelm von Bezold as well as the polar researcher Fridtjof Nansen .

From 1898–1908 he was a member, from 1902 head of the Russian Murman expedition initiated by the zoologist Nikolai Knipowitsch for the biological-oceanographic exploration of the northern Arctic Ocean . From 1912 Breitfuß headed the meteorological-oceanographic department of the Hydrographic Office of the Imperial Russian Navy in St. Petersburg and remained in this position until 1920 after the October Revolution . In 1914/15 he organized the rescue expeditions for the troubled Russian polar expeditions Georgi Sedov , Georgi Brusilov and Vladimir Russanov , but was ultimately unable to help. His rescue operation undertaken in 1920 with the Norwegian captain Otto Sverdrup for the icebreaker Solowej Budimirowitsch (later Malygin ) frozen in the Kara Sea was more successful . They managed to advance with the icebreaker Svjatogor (later Krasin ) to Solowej Budimirowitsch and free the ship from the ice.

Then Leonid Breitfuß moved to Berlin. His main scientific occupation there was the questions of the Northeast Passage . He was also involved in the International Study Society for Exploring the Arctic by Airship (Aeroarctic) , of which he was a founding member in 1924. At the meeting of a special committee appointed by the board of the Aeroarctic on November 16, 1926, Breitfuß suggested the implementation of a second International Polar Year , which should take place exactly 50 years after the first. The meteorologist Johannes Georgi , who had attended the meeting, renewed the proposal a year later at the Deutsche Seewarte in Hamburg, whose head, Hugo Dominik (1872–1933), passed it on to the International Meteorological Organization . Breitfuß is thus an important initiator of the second International Polar Year. From 1928 he edited the magazine Arktis . After the death of Fridtjof Nansen , who, as the founding president of Aeroarctic, had also been the publisher of her magazine, it was published jointly by Breitfuß, Arthur Berson and Walther Bruns from 1930 onwards .

Until 1936 Breitfuß did research again at the Zoological Institute of the University of Berlin , mainly on lime sponges and administered the institute's library .

During the Second World War he worked on a large standard work on polar research, which should contain a directory of over 3000 polar journeys. The draft was destroyed by the war.

In 1945 Breitfuß, who was over 80 years old, got a job at the German Hydrographic Institute , a successor to the German Naval Observatory in Hamburg , who worked until 1948 under the administration of the British Navy . At that time, the future chemist Bruno Sansoni was his private secretary.

After Breitfuss' death, his heirs sold his polar library to the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge .

Leonid Breitfuß published reports on the Murman expedition (eight volumes) in 1943, Das Nordpolargebiet. Its nature, meaning and exploration and in 1949 among others Antarctica, its nature, exploration and whaling . In total, he has written over 200 scientific papers in the fields of zoology, oceanography and the history of polar research.

Breitfuß 'work has been honored several times. The Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg awarded him the Golden Lütke Medal. The Russian government appointed him to the real Council of State . The Norwegian government awarded him the Commander's Cross for the Order of Saint Olav . A cape on Hooker Island ( Franz-Josef-Land ) is named after him, as is the Breitfuß Glacier in Antarctica .

Works (selection)

Leonid Breitfuß: The arctic calcareous sponge fauna . Inaugural dissertation, Stricker, Berlin 1898
Leonid Breitfuß: Wanderings in the land of the white death. Experiences and diary entries of the first helmsman Albanov of the Brusilov expedition (1912–1914) on his voyage from board the “St. Anna ”to Cape Flora . Perthes, Gotha 1925
Leonid Breitfuß: The north polar region. Its nature, meaning and exploration . Springer, Berlin 1943 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
Leonid Breitfuß: Exploration of the polar regions 1932–1947 . Perthes, Gotha 1950

literature

Ernst Herrmann : Professor Dr. Leonid Breitfuss on his 50th anniversary of polar research (1898–1948) and his birthday (1864–1949) . Polar Research Archives, 1949.
Kurt Ruthe : A Life for Polar Research. Prof. Dr. Leonid Breitfuß is 85 years old and has worked as a researcher for 50 years . In: Polarforschung 19, Heft 1/2, 1949, p. 293 ( PDF file ).
Theodor Stocks: Breitfuß, Leonid. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 574 f. ( Digitized version ).
Cornelia Lüdecke: Leonid Ludwig Breitfuß (1864–1950) in Germany. Chronicler of polar exploration and the circumstances surrounding the sale of his library to England . In: Polarforschung 71, Heft 3, 2001, pp. 109–119 ( PDF file ).

Web links

Literature by and about Leonid Breitfuß in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b C. Lüdecke (2001), Appendix 2: Leonid Ludwig Breitfuß: Curriculum Vitae 1944
^ Two Arctic Rescue Ships. Russia Buys Them to Use in Search for Explorers . In: New York Times , March 28, 1914
↑ C. Lüdecke (2001), Appendix 1: Leonid Ludwig Breitfuß: Tabular curriculum vitae around 1930
^ Cornelia Lüdecke, Julia Lajus: The Second International Polar Year 1932–1933 . In: Susan Barr, Cornelia Lüdecke (Ed.): The History of the International Polar Years (IPYs) . Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-642-12401-3 , pp. 135–173 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-12402-0 (English, limited preview in Google book search).
↑ K. Ruthe (1949)
↑ Christian Reichardt , Dorothea Schulz, Michael Marsch: Brief overview of the development of the subject chemistry at the Philipps University of Marburg from 1609 to the present . Dean's office of the Department of Chemistry at the Philipps University of Marburg (ed.), 7th edition, Marburg, June 2015.

personal data
SURNAME	Breitfuß, Leonid
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Breitfuß, Ludwig Gottlieb (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German marine biologist and polar researcher
DATE OF BIRTH	December 1, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH	St. Petersburg
DATE OF DEATH	July 20, 1950
Place of death	Bad Pyrmont

[Lebenslauf_1944-1] A ^b C. Lüdecke (2001), Appendix 2: Leonid Ludwig Breitfuß: Curriculum Vitae 1944

[2] Two Arctic Rescue Ships. Russia Buys Them to Use in Search for Explorers . In: New York Times , March 28, 1914

[3] C. Lüdecke (2001), Appendix 1: Leonid Ludwig Breitfuß: Tabular curriculum vitae around 1930

[4] Cornelia Lüdecke, Julia Lajus: The Second International Polar Year 1932–1933 . In: Susan Barr, Cornelia Lüdecke (Ed.): The History of the International Polar Years (IPYs) . Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-642-12401-3 , pp. 135–173 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-12402-0 (English, limited preview in Google book search).

[5] K. Ruthe (1949)

[Reichardt-6] Christian Reichardt , Dorothea Schulz, Michael Marsch: Brief overview of the development of the subject chemistry at the Philipps University of Marburg from 1609 to the present . Dean's office of the Department of Chemistry at the Philipps University of Marburg (ed.), 7th edition, Marburg, June 2015.